Abstract

This study investigated the perversions (to the normative culture that the subculture comes in contact with) and perceptions of sound in various subcultures, specifically in the Barona Band of Mission Indians and tribal subsets of rave culture. Ethnographic approaches lead us to understand alteration of sounds as a means to create a space of transcendence and liminality. Specifically, we studied the Barona Band of Mission Indians and their use of silence and sound swallowing as acoustics. Similarly, at various rave cultures, acoustic overstimulation was perceived as a key ingredient to achieving similar forms of collective effervescence. This subculture engaged in discourse likening acoustics to a variety of creative metaphors. Both sound isolation and the unique sense-making processes and speech codes of the subcultures were key to the study. Above all, we investigated the alteration of acoustics within a socio-spiritual context. In an increasingly postmodern and globalized world of tenuous connections and synchronous communication we argued for a need to put a focus on community-based subcultures in order to understand our perceptions of sound in the contemporary cultural moment.